It is known in the beverage dispensing art to use cold plates to provide heat exchange cooling of various drinks. The cold plate itself is cooled by a volume of ice placed in contact with it, and in turn provides for cooling of beverage liquids circulated through tubes embedded in the cold plate. In situations where a cold plate is used in conjunction with a post-mix beverage dispenser, sources of carbonated water and beverage syrup flavoring are connected to the cold plate to be cooled as they are passed through the cold plate. A carbonated drink is then produced when the cooled carbonated water and syrup flavoring constituents are subsequently mixed together and dispensed from a post mix valve.
A carbonator tank is generally used to produce the carbonated water through the mixture therein of water and carbon dioxide gas. A problem concerns placement of the carbonator tank. Locating the carbonator to the exterior of a dispenser is known, but ambient warming of the carbonator and its contents then becomes a problem in terms of dispenser performance and added ice usage. It is known to have an internal carbonator that is placed within the dispenser in heat exchange contact with the cold plate, but such efforts have heretofore added cost and complexity to the dispenser and/or resulted in reducing the amount of cold plate surface area available to contact ice and, therefore, in a reduction in the capacity of the cold plate to cool beverages. Accordingly, it would be very desirable to have an internal carbonator that is cooled by the cold plate without substantially reducing the surface area of the cold plate that is available for heat exchange contact with ice.